Tuesday, February 28, 2017

My cardmaking group was doing a card exchange and you had to make a card any shape but square or rectangle. I usually don't have time for these kind of challenges but at the time I was actually all caught up with birthday cards so I went for it.

The flowers were stamped in white embossing powder and colored with watercolored with distress inks.

Monday, February 27, 2017

I am sharing the pretty Poppystamps Stitched bloom trio dies. Instead of shaping them with a foam mat and stylus like I usually do I thought I would share a different way for those of you that may not have those tools. I took my bone folder, and while holding the middle part of the flower, so I don't rip off the petals I ran the bone folder along the bottom part of the petal to give it that curve, kind of like how you do when you want to curl ribbon. If you don't have one of those either you could use a Popsicle stick or maybe a small paint brush handle. Stickles in Starry night were added to the center of the flowers. For the big flower I used all three die and layered them together for two of them I used only the two smaller dies.

Next I cute my cardstock at 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 inches and taped the Poppystamps - Tulisa Corner collage die to the upper left hand corner and cut it out, I then added a piece of scrap paper I had to the back before applying it to my card base.

I just love the style of that corner and you can see the stitched flowers here also!

Next is the pretty Poppystamps Eyelet stitches border die, I love all the stitched borders in this die, unlike the other stitched border dies I have been using these actually cut a scallop on one side.

Sunday, February 26, 2017

I wanted to get a quick card out to a friend from church that is going through a very rough patch right now and I found this die cut background that a cardmaking friend sent to me.

I took regular distress inks and sponged them on, splashed a little water on it but it didn't really show up much, when dry I added some white marks with a pen. Stamped the sentiment onto a strip of cardstock.

Wednesday, February 22, 2017

Can you believe I actually made a card with no one in mind to give it to, I know I will actual have one in my stash.

My local stamp store said they had the new Distress Oxide inks in and after watching some video's on them I figured I had to get a few just to give it a try, I bought 3 colors, and for my first time I just decided to blend them and try stamping with them.

I used Bristol paper for this one, sponged on the inks and then took a paint brush and splatter water over the whole surface. I left it to dry on it's own while I went searching for a stamp, and did a couple other things, when I came back there were still a couple droplets so I took paper towel to take them up, that is the white spots you see. I then stamped my image using the same ink I sponged on the bottom of my card. Used watercolor markers to color it, except for the tree trunk was colored with Tombow marker.

A little tip for you, I had colored the flowers in pink, but after I decided to add some spectrum sparkle marker to it and it didn't seem to mix well and turned the flowers almost a tan or brown color.

I should have just left it as it was but I thought it needed more so I took my Spellbinder die and just embossed with it, no cutting to frame it.

Monday, February 20, 2017

This card all started with this chipboard piece with 3 circles in it. I had no idea where I was going with this card, but I was challenging myself to use pieces from this set and when I came across this piece I thought I could use my inchie stamps with it.

I painted the chipboard piece first, it did take a couple of coats, the chipboard soaks up a lot of the paint. While that was drying I stamped the inchie images and sentiment.
Cut my paper, and tried to find an interesting way to attach the sentiment and found this clip, I hadn't used these in awhile either.

I really like the yellow and gray combo, I applied it to a black card base.

I hope you are enjoying the start to your week, we are enjoying above normal temperatures, the weather guy did say last night though that by the end of the week our lows will be back in the 20's brrr, so winter is not done with us yet.

Dies R us is having a Design Team call, if you are interested check out this Link for all the details.

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by and letting me know you did,

Sunday, February 19, 2017

There are so many ways that you could use this border die but I decided to use it in a gatefold card today.

I started with a piece of cardstock measuring 5 1/2x 8 7/8. On the long side I scored my card stock at 2 3/8 and 6 5/8. With these measurements I was able to get the two borders to just barely overlap.

My tip for you is to take your die and line it up with a grid of some kind to make sure you are getting your die cut straight as you see in this picture below. I always tape my dies down with a removable tape so the die doesn't shift on you.

Once I lined up and cut both sides I applied tape to the left side so that I could put a flower panel of paper so that when the card is closed you see the flower panel and not the message I wrote on the inside. I used scor pal tape, I suggest using heavy duty tape you use for things you don't want to move at all, you just want to be very careful when taping your panel to the side panel.

Saturday, February 18, 2017

My great nephew had just started basketball just before his birthday, so I decided to go with that theme for his birthday card this year. The images are stickers, I just added a bit of marker under the boy to ground him and I decided to write the sentiment myself, I thought it would be neater than just saying Happy Birthday. I used a sketch from Splitcoast stampers for this card.

I never get around to going through my pictures I take to share when I actually take them, so I made an effort to do that this time, on my hubby's day off a couple days ago we drove over to Missouri to Elephant Rocks state park, they have a very nice paved trail there, although you can go off and do some climbing if you want. It is very hilly though.

They have an old ruin of an engine house that serviced the trains that worked in these Quarries years ago, they use to mine here and when they were done they turned it into a park. Here is my hubby standing in front of it, isn't the brick work so cool. Yep he has two cameras he takes picture with and I now have the very first camera he ever bought.

First signs of spring, the buds are forming, YAH!!!

Here you can see the holes they would make when mining.

Here we are at the top of Elephant Rock

The trail has these tight spaces to get through the rocks or you can go an easier way for those with wheel chairs, we chose to go this way, more fun :)

The lake at the Quarry

My taking of this picture

This is how my hubby chooses to get this picture, I think my way is safer :)

We enjoyed a beautiful day out! Hope you enjoy your weekend.
Thanks so much for stopping by today and I hope you join my again tomorrow for my next Dies R us blog post.

Friday, February 17, 2017

I have been seeing these Z-Fold cards all over and wanted to give it a try, but I never did give it a try until I was thinking about what I could do for Kim at Sarah Lizzies and it hit me that the strip that holds the card together might be perfect for Hexagons, and since she loves making hexagon quilts I thought it would be perfect for her.

For the life of me I can not find the tutorial I used and must be I didn't write it down but if you do a search for Z fold card tutorial you will find a whole bunch of them, so me easier than others, I tried one that you cut into the base and I didn't like the way that looked so I started over with this type that you cut the long strip and glue it on instead and I thought that looked a lot better.

Sorry about the pictures, this was a hard card for me to photograph. I used an embossing folder on the front, adding a little chalk to the raise areas in green and cut many hexagons as you can see, the die already has the stitched marks so that was perfect.

The inside:

Now what card doesn't need a flower :) The space you see blank there is where I wrote my message.

Here it is all open.

I hope you get a chance to stop over to Kim's blog, she makes such Beautiful creations and takes the most Lovely pictures, it is a joy for the eyes to take a stop by.

Wednesday, February 15, 2017

Going back to the challenges my stamp group had a few weeks ago, this time one of the girls challenges was to do a mixed media project. You had to have some kind of texture, color and embellishments along with stamping. This is way out of my comfort zone, and I had in mind to do a canvas for this project, well while looking for my canvas (which I never found) I came across these Body Forms that I had won off a blog many years ago and I never did do anything with them.

I started off with my color and I used paint as my choice of medium. I used Spun sugar and Lettuce distress paints on the form.

Then came the texture and I decided to use molding paste but I didn't want it to be white, so I added Lime green glitter to the paste, let me just say here right now that was quite the mess to clean up, especially off my stencil I used, but I totally loved the results.

While that was drying, I set out to figure out what stamp I would use with it and then I remembered my new Heartfelt creations Woodsy wonderland stamps I had bought that had flowers and I thought they might look neat at the base. I am thinking about coloring another set and adding them to the back of the base, might be neat to have them all around the base and not just in the front. I colored them with markers.

Then came figuring out what embellishments I wanted and decided to do a necklace, so I went through my small gems and beads and found this cut bead heart and added gems to it also. It needed something on the top and I found this pretty rose that fit just right on the top. Of course to me it still felt like it needed something and then I remembered my leaf ribbon I found at my stamp store and I felt like that was the perfect thing to finish it off.

This was a bit out of my normal but that is what challenges are for, right?

Well I didn't expect a Valentine's card from my hubby this year, work has been really rough and he hasn't been feeling well on top of it all so I was thinking he probably wouldn't get around to it but he did surprise me with this card yesterday. The image is one he drew a few years back and had scanned, he printed it off and added the other embellishments. He said he was really tired when he made it, but I think he did a great job.

He had a border of swirls on the inside too with the sentiment, but that part is private :)

Wishing you well on this mid week. We have a chilly start today but the sun is shinning bright and the birds are singing, couldn't ask for more :)

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by, and letting me know you did,

Tuesday, February 14, 2017

I would have shared these earlier with you but I did just manage to get them done a couple days ago and also my hubby does check in on my blog from time to time, so I didn't want him seeing his Valentine before the big day.

I was fortunate to win these wonderful die cut images off of Birgit's blog, she is one of the sweetest ladies I was blessed to get to know through the Dies R us design team. These dies are from the Green Duck Sales die cut club. They had two sets of the owls and so I decided to use them for my hubby and for our daughter and son in laws card also :)

First up is my hubby's card:

Yep those are google eyes on them and they come all glittered and ready to go, aren't they cute :) The heart and sentiment were also part of the dies, all I had to add was the paper and the branch for them to perch on.

Now Esther over at Shoregirlscreations was so sweet to send me some of her lovely creations she makes for embellishing cards, you will be seeing more of her goodies soon I am sure, today I used one of her library cards that she stamped the love you and little heart, it was the perfect backdrop for the owls.

BasicGrey -- sugar rush papers
Green Duck images and sentiment

Wishing you all much Love today, thanks for always being so sweet to stop in and say hi,

Sunday, February 12, 2017

The next challenge one of the ladies had for us was to make a quilt block card, I had no idea what I wanted to do but I did decide I wanted to make the card for Linda from Sew what blog . She does such beautiful sewing projects, She makes the most lovely angels but try as I might I couldn't think of anything I could do with that theme from what I had on hand so I when the challenge came up with a quilt block I went with that :)

I found the pattern for this card HERE, but for the life of me I can't find the actual link to it just her blog. I don't have any of the dimensions I am sorry but I believe it was cut one inch squares, then cut them on the diagonal and make them into the pattern, then put the block through an embossing folder to get a quilted look to the block.

I decided to make it into an easel card. I went with a border die to have the card rest on and added a couple flowers to it.

Friday, February 10, 2017

I forgot to finish posting cards made from my stamp groups week of challenges. On this card you can't really go by the results I got because I didn't use the correct ink, that just shows you that you really need to read the directions over a couple of times to make sure you are doing correctly.

You are to apply at least three different colors of DISTRESS INKS OR WATER BASED INKS to your base cardstock. Then stamp over that with an outline stamp, one that won't smear with your water, like Versafine is what I used. Then take a paint brush with water on it on the areas you want to lighten up, take off access ink and water with clean paper towel.

I used dye inks and that is why I didn't get the same results as the other ladies and I didn't have time to go back and try it again doing it the correct way. As you can see a little bit of the ink did lift off but not as well as it should have.

I am a bit behind once again on blog visiting, my hubby's best friend since High School came to visit with his new wife. His first wife passed away a few years back and we are so happy for him that he has found a lovely lady to share his life with.

Wednesday, February 8, 2017

I needed a teen birthday card for my great nephew and I had bought these star dies awhile back and have never used them, they come in a stack of them and they cut all at one time, so I took every other one and put one inside the other and added them with this birthday stamp.

Monday, February 6, 2017

I love finding new ways to use my dies and I love this idea of changing our dies into stamps, using those foam sheets we find at our craft stores.

I used the Memory Box, Bella Bouquet die today to use for my stamp, and I ended up with 3 cards. On this first card I also used the Poppystamps Colonnade Corner, they don't seem to have this particular die in right now but they did have some other corner dies in the Poppystamps new release section. Memory Box - Country stitches dies where also used on this card and my second card.

First I cut the bouquet from fun foam.

My tip for you is to just run it through your machine one pass. I tend to cut my dies by running it through and then back again but I noticed that when I do this the foam tends to shift and you don't get a good cut, so just run it through one way and it will cut fine the first try.

As you can hopefully see in this photo I added double stick tape to the back of my foam cut die and adhered that to my misty. You can use what ever you normally use for your stamping of clear stamps.

This next photo shows the ink applied to the foam, here is where I was happy to have my MISTI tool because it took a few stampings to get a good coverage but I also used Memento dye ink, I am thinking if you try a pigment ink it may be a bit juicier and you may be able to get good coverage in one stamp, I did not try any other inks.

Now after stamping I sprayed my foam stamp with water and got a great idea to try and stamp again onto watercolor paper this time to see what kind of watercolor look I could get, and this is what I ended up with.

This is the card I made with the watercolor panel.

Now as you see after stamping the watercolor panel there was still a touch of color onto the foam stamp, and it ended up being almost a soft purple and I thought wow I could make another card out of the foam stamp and that is when I came up with my last card. I also used the Memory Box, Fresh foliage die and the Poppystamps, Lovely gift bow die, whidh I love how it gives you a bow but not all the thickness that a real bow gives.